SpaceX launch puts on a show over Hatteras Island; A second launch is scheduled for Saturday
On Friday, December 16, at 5:48 p.m., SpaceX launched the Falcon 9’s SES O3b mPOWER mission to medium-Earth orbit from the Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and folks on Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands were able to catch the show from multiple locations.
SpaceX is targeting Saturday, December 17, for another Falcon 9 launch of 54 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Starlink is SpaceX’s ever-growing system of broadband satellites, which beam internet service to people around the world.
The launch window for Saturday is at 4:32 p.m.
If all goes according to plan on Saturday, the Falcon 9 first stage will come back to Earth just nine minutes after liftoff, and will land on SpaceX’s Just Read the Instructions droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast.
Saturday’s launch will be the third in two days for SpaceX. On Friday at 3:46 a.m. PT, SpaceX also launched NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission to low-Earth orbit from the Space Launch Complex at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
A live webcast of Saturday’s mission will begin about five minutes prior to liftoff, and more information on SpaceX’s 196 total launches to date can be found at https://www.spacex.com/launches/.
